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Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

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Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#31

Post by farrel »

AirBnB gives the illusion that you can just rent out your apartment without any precautions. I've stayed in a few dedicated holiday apartments and almost without fail:

1) They are furnished with the basics and that's it. No valuables and nothing that can not be easily replaced.

2) The owner or an employed managing agent interacted with us (either at the apartment or when we fetched the keys) when we arrived and left.

3) They had insurance in place and 80% of the time when I signed for the apartment I was also signing my own liability.

If you are prepared to rent out a fully furnished (and in this case full of valuables) apartment to strangers you need to be prepared for the potential massive downside. 99% of your guests may be hassle free but it just takes that 1% to wipe out any financial upside and even then they may not even do it on purpose - accidents can and do happen.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#32

Post by palish »

freddealmeida wrote: post #6
jamesgagan wrote: post #2

I find this bit particularly damning: "During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a “twist" of good news so as to “complete[s] the story”. Seems like we are all still waiting for the "good news" ending to this tale.

I'm more disappointed with airbnb screwing this up than that there are bad people using the site. They should have dropped everything to fix this. I wonder what pg thinks about this.

I doubt Airbnb cares what pg thinks.

I'm just guessing, but it seems likely Airbnb see themselves as "underdogs, displacing the hotel industry". The fact that they care so much how EJ phrased her post after her home was completely destroyed (look around you right now --- imagine all of that being gone and never coming back) indicates they have an ego to match. So no, pg can't help them, and no one else can either. It's up to them to fix or break their billion-dollar company.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#33

Post by chubot »

compnerd wrote: post #9

I'm starting to get the feeling that the Airbnb founders will do "whatever" it takes, to see their business succeed.

Yeah, first the craigslist thing, now this. They seem unconcerned with "evil". I guess that's how businesses succeed in our system.

I get the feeling that it's pretty chaotic over there. My first AirBNB experience was filled with crazy bugs (the messaging system, logins). It seems they're trying to get huge fast rather than taking the time to polish the experience.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#35

Post by vessenes »

This is a seriously damning essay from someone who's clearly working through PTSD issues (or is an amazing liar).

Part of the issue is that young fast-growth CEOs don't major on empathy, typically. It's somewhat contrary to the necessities of the job. These co-founders have absolutely no concept of how this woman feels, or if they do, they have determined that they won't let her know about it. The best thing say Paul Graham could do would be to hire them a crisis management coach, stat.

While the co-founders are reportedly worrying a bit about valuation right now, they could (and should) be turning this into an amazing PR story; massively over-compensating her, setting up a Lloyds-based insurance coverage program, appearing on something like Oprah to talk over how it felt, and what we can all do as we're moving into this awesome social-based home sharing..

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#36

Post by sixty »

airbnb need to realise this will not go away. The way I see it, their two main options are:

1) hire a PR firm, lawyer up and let the spin doctors handle things. With the amount of money they have, this is a real option. They could probably convince or coerce (bully?) the victim into accepting a settlement in exchange for keeping quiet. The PR machine would then be free to write (or rewrite) the story as they see fit.

2) Come clean. Realise that it's never the victim's fault. Compensate her financially for her loss. Offer to provide counselling. Help her with the logistics of finding and moving to a new place. Work with the victim (and other airbnb users) to figure out how to reduce the chances of this happening again. And all the while, document everything. Brian C speaks of openness and transparency - show us, don't tell us.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#37

Post by vnchr »

btheroux wrote: post #21
nodata wrote: post #14

This is really crappy and airbnb fucked up big time, twice now. But... there's something odd about the way the victim writes, and I don't understand why it's jumping out at me: " bouncing between friends’ homes".. " clutching my pillow".. " breathing through panic attacks".. " scouring the city’s pawn shops".. " this too shall pass and I will be made whole again. "

Pictures would be nice. Or a copy of the police report works as great proof.

It seems both of those could be interfering with the investigation. She made the point that she had not posted pictures as an example of cooperating with the process between AirBnB and the police.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#38

Post by bignoggins »

shadowflit wrote: post #26
bignoggins wrote: post #3

I'm using airbnb in Berlin right now. Two days ago I received a knock on my door. Turns out it was the real owner of the apartment and he had the Paperwork to prove it. Fortunately he was nice enough to let us stay without compensation. When I went to the airbnb website to try and call them all I got was a web message box. I filled out a message and sent it on its way but that's a pretty lousy system. Luckily for me…

Just to clarify, since it took your second comment to get me to this understanding - Someone who was not the real owner of the apartment (presumably thief/criminal) put the place up on AirBnB. You unknowingly rented the place from this person, and during your stay, the real owner showed up and asked what you were doing in his house?

that is correct. The person who put up the listing claims to be friends with the tenant. The tenant has not paid rent in 4 months and his contract explicitly forbids subletting. So I am staying in this apartment illegally. Luckily, the owner is nice enough to let us stay for the remainder of our time without compensation. I have no idea how common this situation is but this is only our 6th time using airbnb and if this is a common occurrence then airbnb has a HUGE problem on their hands. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of the business so I'm hoping for better countermeasures in the future against this kind of thing. It's a very very tough problem to solve.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#39

Post by bignoggins »

dlss wrote: post #29
bignoggins wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am giving a statement to the police later today along with a lawyer and the real owner of the apartment. I'm not sure how far this will escalate here in Germany but I'd imagine as airbnb has facilitated a transaction with a criminal the German authorities will want to pursue further. I'm not the victim here, but the owner is.

Right -- I'm pointing out that experiences like yours are probably fairly common. In the comments to the other story, people kept talking about how it is safe to rent using AirBnB. If the owner here had been less understanding, I'm guessing you would have at least spent the night in jail (assuming you speak German and everything else went well).

yes I am extremely grateful that the owner is a nice and understanding guy. We are doing whatever we can to help him in this situation because it just sucks for him. Funny thing is I had just visited checkpoint Charlie so I was in a cold war state of mind. Then a few hours later this guy in a thick Russian accent knocks on my door demanding what I'm doing in his house. For a moment I thought I was in a bad 80s movie.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#40

Post by weaksauce »

shadowflit wrote: post #26
bignoggins wrote: post #3

I'm using airbnb in Berlin right now. Two days ago I received a knock on my door. Turns out it was the real owner of the apartment and he had the Paperwork to prove it. Fortunately he was nice enough to let us stay without compensation. When I went to the airbnb website to try and call them all I got was a web message box. I filled out a message and sent it on its way but that's a pretty lousy system. Luckily for me…

Just to clarify, since it took your second comment to get me to this understanding - Someone who was not the real owner of the apartment (presumably thief/criminal) put the place up on AirBnB. You unknowingly rented the place from this person, and during your stay, the real owner showed up and asked what you were doing in his house?

Yes that seems to be the correct understanding. The thief probably stayed at the place and made a copy of the key. Afterwards they rented it out on abnb.
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